Super-Users at an Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Teaching Clinic: Demographics and Unique Clinical Characteristics

Abstract

Super-users represent a small yet real subset of AOM patients. They tend to be older, report lower income, and exhibit greater visit frequency than more typical AOM users. The factors motivating AOM super-user behavior may be different from those in other medical domains, notably emergency medicine, and likely include long-term management of chronic pain and other chronic conditions. Future studies into the long-term health outcomes of AOM super-users, as well as the economic impact on other health services, are warranted.

Patient Demographics at an Urban Acupuncture Teaching Clinic

“…While both men and women clustered in the 2 to 5 visit range, suggestive of people coming to be treated for a specific complaint, women were more likely to be "super users" [9] of acupuncture at a rate of 16.4% compared to 7% of men being seen more than 10 times per year (Figure 1). …”

“…The demographics of those seeking acupuncture and related Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) treatments in a variety of teaching centers has been discussed in several articles [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. The demographics of acupuncture patients in these studies were similar.…”